Painting On Vacation – Part 1

I thought that you might enjoy seeing my watercolor paintings in my art journal during my lake vacation.  I posted them on Instagram but I know that some of you aren’t on IG so this is for you!  And it is kind of fun to see them all together.  🙂

I have decided to show it in two posts.  Here is my first week:

I started with a simple leaf study on Sunday, July 17 and painted it 3 times.  I have the actual leaf in the photo above.  It was really fun to paint it more than once.

On Monday, July 18, I painted this view from the beach.  I haven’t done too many landscapes so it was fun to try one:

On Tuesday, July 19, I gathered a few rocks from the beach and painted them.  I found painting beach rocks to be very meditative:

When walking in the woods on Wednesday, July 20, I discovered this rare find – it is called, Indian Pipe or Ghost flower:

It was one of my more difficult subjects to paint as I had to paint the shadows.

Thursday, July 21, we had a perfectly, blue-sky kind of day!  The best weather all week.  I found this Thimbleberry Bush and clipped a couple of stems to paint:

On Friday, July 22, I painted this dragonfly from a photo I had taken previously.  I really liked how it turned out:

On Saturday, I painted this more complex subject of Bunchberries from a photo I took from a walk along a path:

I ran out of time and patience on it.  I wasn’t pleased with my background but I decided to give it a rest.  I kept reminding myself that it is about practice NOT perfection…

On Sunday, July 24, I tried another challenging subject – beach toys on the beach from this photo:

I learned a lot during my first week of painting while on vacation.  I enjoyed trying a variety of subjects and I didn’t give up when I struggled.  YAY!

I’m not sure I would have painted in watercolor EVERY day if it wasn’t for Charlie at Doodlewash who started World Watercolor Month for July.  (Note the group is now called, World Watercolor Group).   Thanks Charlie for inspiring me!

I will post my photos for the second week of my lake vacation on Thursday, August 4th.

Happy Painting!  🙂